The solar industry has to make changes if the cleantech market is to rebound

The cleantech revolution continues to be a popular catch phrase among politicians and eco-friendly folks, but recent trends indicate the growing industry faces stiff challenges as 2011 slowly winds down.

The solar industry faces a drastic problem after numerous companies jumped into the industry that wasn't mature enough to support all of the newcomers. To make matters worse, falling prices are forcing smaller and less prepared companies to sell out to their competitors, and that isn't expected to change in the near future, according to green experts.

"Weaker companies who did not get their product costs down to competitive levels are going to disappear," said Christopher Blansett, JP Morgan Securities analyst, in a statement to Bloomberg. "They'll be bought up. They'll go away. There is significantly more supply of solar modules than demand."

Along with economic issues, University of Tennessee researchers believe lead pollution from solar power creation could dramatically increase. Lead batteries are used to store solar power, and lead pollution could increase in developing nations.

Even with solar energy facing obvious hurdles, the US government still has high hopes for the future of domestic cleantech. However, with cleantech expected to help draw the economy out of a continued slump, lawmakers and the private sector need to work together to find a solution to help cleantech develop -- before these jobs and technology also go overseas to India, China, and other nations investing heavily in solar power.

Despite these problems, there are numerous bright sides to the solar industry as it continues to expand -- the International Energy Agency predicts solar power will produce most of the world's energy power by 2060, and hydropower, wind, and bioenergy fighting over the rest of the industry.

For home owners looking to increase their house values, making the initial investment to install solar panels can lead to higher resale values, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers.

"If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel." -- AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in 2007